Time and money. Both are common reasons people eat out. But contrary to common perception, convenient fast food meals can be more expensive than home cooked meals. And small improvements such as picking more nutritious options among breads, cereals, and packaged foods at the grocery store do not on average cost more. Continue Reading...

For decades, the progressive damage to brain cells and the connections between them that occurs in Alzheimer’s disease has been associated with abnormalities in two brain proteins: clumps of the protein fragment beta-amyloid into plaques and twisted strands of the protein tau into tangles. Over the past decade, scientists have been getting closer to a better understanding of why the brain develops these hallmark changes. Among the contributing causes, as reviewed in a recently released online article May 2016 in the journal Physiology & Behavior is accumulating evidence that Alzheimer’s disease is a metabolic disease—a disease of how the brain responds to insulin, utilizes glucose, and metabolizes energy. Alzheimer’s disease may be a form of diabetes of the brain. Continue Reading...

Last month a team of doctors and scientists made the case to regulators at the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to consider approving anti-aging drugs as a new pharmaceutical class. Such a designation would treat aging as disease rather than a natural process, potentially opening the door to government funding for anti-aging drug trials.

To some, such a drug may seem impossible. Yet, the physiologic basis for it exists. In fact, some candidate drugs, such as metformin, used to treat diabetes, are already being safely used for treating other conditions. Many scientists believe that designing an anti-aging medication is a matter of “when,” not “if.” Continue Reading...

According to the US National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, Americans are now spending the majority, or roughly two-thirds, of the day sedentary. The damaging health effects of prolonged sitting may be the new tobacco.

That may not be surprising to anybody with a sedentary job. Long, uninterrupted hours sitting at work or commuting make it hard to make time for physical activity. Yet, the wake-up call is that in addition to leaving less time for exercise and leisure activities, prolonged sitting poses its own unique type of harm to your body. Continue Reading...